Q: You have been in bands throughout your thirteen year career but this is your first solo release? Can you talk about the pros and cons as well as the transition?

A: Being in a band is an awesome thing, but it’s also a serious commitment. It’s fantastic to bounce ideas off of your bandmates and become collectively excited about an idea that’s clicking on all cylinders, but at the same time, you have to all be on the same page simultaneously to capture that lightning in a bottle. For thirteen years I’ve subscribed to the idea that recordings are the most important aspect in letting the world in on your musical scheme and after the collapse of my last band, I just sort of took to the idea of doing things myself when others weren’t willing to commit. That being said, I have nothing bad to say about any of my past bands and probably wouldn’t have carried my passion this far without their help, unintentional or otherwise. In fact, if I ever want to play live, I’m going to have to fire that old machine back up, and I am looking forward to that day when it comes.

Q: The theme of the album is based on specific years. Can you talk more about that?

A: Ah, yes! I mostly chalk this up to my woefully underutilized English/Creative Writing background. The short answer is that each song follows a different character from inspiring books I’ve read. The songs are named for the years in which they either took place, or were published, if that year wasn’t made clear in the text (or perhaps I wasn’t the most observant all those years ago that I read them). Each character goes through some type of change, physical, emotional, or spiritual, and that’s what I wanted to showcase with the first EP. Annotations refers to the sort of mental notes and lessons I took with me when I read these books.

Q: You did the mixing yourself and had it mastered by the well known Alan Douches. The production sounds great. Do you have any tips for artists going full on DIY?

​A: I recorded and mixed all the songs in my little home studio. And thank you for saying it sounds great because it took me about a year to finish these between learning how to record and mix, and overcoming my borderline perfectionist tendencies. Much appreciated. Alan did an excellent job on the mastering as he is known to do. He is one of the only guys who will call you and have a full on conversation to talk about your vision for the masters. As for DIY, it's always tricky. My advice would be to get things as tight as you possibly can at the recording stage. That includes timing, playing to a click track, guitar tone, all that stuff. And isolate as much as possible. A little instrument bleed never hurt anyone, but if you have a bad sounding room, use moving blankets or move your mics closer together. And then probably don’t try to mix it yourself unless you know what you’re doing. I learned this the hard way. Lastly, leave mastering to someone else completely. If you mixed and recorded everything yourself, you’re already too biased to master it. Leave that skill to the professionals with proper equipment in a proper mastering room. Their ears are tuned to hear the big picture, be it a single, EP, or full